Many excellent articles have appeared analyzing the COVID 19 pandemic from a socialist and Marxist perspective. In this piece, we will look at just one question: what should socialists do during the pandemic? The main components of the answer are supporting essential workers fighting for safety protections, defending workers demanding the closing of non-essential industries, and maintaining socialist organization and ideas. What’s involved here?

All necessary protections for all essential workers

The issue of proper protections has emerged as the central flashpoint for conflict between labor and management at the moment. The horrific conditions for nurses and other hospital workers are well known. The lack of Personal Protective Equipment is already a national scandal. The widely-reported conditions in New York City hospitals are being echoed in other big cities. The malign neglect and incompetence of the Trump Administration has exacerbated the long term decline of health care in this country.

Not only is the need for necessary protections well known, it has become the main way in which the class struggle has manifested itself during the pandemic. Other articles on this site have documented the strikes and walk outs on this issue. Supporting workers who demand proper health and safety protections against the Coronavirus is “job one” for socialists today.

Social distancing requirements will make direct support, such as pickets and rallies, generally impossible. However, those socialists who work in essential industries can be, and already are, at the forefront of these actions. Socialists outside of the industries can provide financial support, technical and organization assistance, and help with publicity.

Close all non- essential industries

The capitalist class has defined as essential many industries that are in no way essential to maintain daily life during the epidemic. The construction industry is the most blatant example of this. Keeping these industries open is purely for profit. Struggles have already begun to break on this issue. For example, today workers in the Boston area skilled trades are staying home. Along with the fight for protections in the essential work places, the demand to close non-essential industries will be a focus for working class activity and socialist work.

Organize Community self-help and support

This is obviously a task being carried out by every decent human being, not just socialists. However, when we check on our neighbors or do some shopping for a friend, we have a broader message. Margaret Thatcher is wrong, there is such a thing as society. We do have responsibility for one another. The Golden Rule continues to apply. In the rampant individualism of Trump’s America, in the time of food hoarding, we try to implement, in a very modest way, the ideas of collective, mutual support and assistance.

Socialist should stay organized

Socialists need to maintain their discussions and their organizations during this period. By doing this:

• we give individual militants a sense of direction and perspective during this difficult time.
•  we maintain a vehicle for developing whatever workers struggles are possible
•  we have a means for developing an overall view of the COVID19 crisis based on different comrades’ reports and experiences
• Marxism does not stand still. It is constantly enriched by applying its overall methods to new events and phenomena. We need discussion among Marxists on what this new crisis represents and how our theory helps to explain it.
• Finally, we need to maintain our organizations’ rhythms and structures so that we can move back into broader activity when the situation permits it.

The main vehicles for maintain our organizational cohesion are obviously the internet and social media. Activity on the internet can’t be a weapon in the struggle against capitalism. However, it can certainly be a means of organizing and building the forms of real struggle needed in the real world. Today that means using the social media to maintain Marxist organization and discussion.

Marxists must take a long view

Socialists work in a difficult situation. The working class is being battered. Insecurity and fear dominate the country. A real decline in living standards is taking place. Economic insecurity is widespread. This creates a difficult terrain for us. Dan LaBotz, as usual, puts it very well. Talking about current receptivity to socialist idea, he writes “But while these ideas are very important, it is not easy to hear them at a time when unemployment and rent-paying problems, illness and death are demanding our full attention. Especially for the working class, the struggle for survival is now paramount.” (USA: The Storm Strikes, https://www.sap-rood.org/vs-de-storm-slaat-toe/).

            Today, workers’ minds are concentrated on keeping their heads above water. When the medical situation begins to improve and the situation begins to de-escalate, Marxists can make a fundamental argument—the COVID19 pandemic has been a stunning confirmation of the main points we have long been arguing:

• That capitalism is a system based on profit, not human need
• That the capitalist system is based on anarchic competition, not long-term planning
• That the bourgeois state was built to protect the interests of the capitalist class, not general social welfare
• That capital will not hesitate to sacrifice the health of the working class to the needs of profit
• That the labor of the working class is essential for the capitalist system to function
• That economic downturns have not been eradicated, but built into the nature of capitalism

This list of Marxist ideas that have been verified in conduct of capitalism during the pandemic could go on for pages. The main point is clear. Marxism provides the only explanation of how the capitalist class has functioned in this crisis.

Conclusion

Socialists defend a world view that explains the social effects of the pandemic. We work with the perspective of developing workers struggles for protection in the essential industries and closing the non-essential ones. We will maintain our organizations and discussions. If we do these things, we can weather this storm.